This invention relates to a method and apparatus for forming a wire stock into a coil.
When manufacturing a hard drawn copper wire by dip forming process, for example, a wire stock coated with copper in a crucible is hot rolled to a desired diameter, and the rolled wire stock is formed into a coil by means of a coiler. The formed coil is then dropped onto a carrier or pallet. With such an arrangement, since the coil is dropped by its own weight to be accumulated on the carrier or pallet, gaps are formed between coil turns thus impairing the space factor of the coil. Moreover, coil turns of one coil enter into the gaps of the other coil thus causing tangling of the wire stock when it is paid out in the succeeding stage.
To obviate this difficulty, it has been proposed to vibrate the carrier or the pallet during the coiling operation so as to prevent formation of gaps between successively falling turns. This arrangement can efficiently eliminate the gaps between the turns when the diameter of the wire stock is small, but when the wire diameter is large it is necessary to apply a considerably large vibration to eliminate the gaps between the coil turns. This required a powerful vibration device. Even with such a powerful vibration device, the result is not always satisfactory.